Farewell to Ken Duke

UGA’s Ken Duke — assistant professor at the Southeast Clinical Campus in Savannah, is retiring from the college after almost 37 years of service, which doesn’t even include his 1977 registered pharmacist degree.

In recognition of Duke’s passion for the water, a “Rowing to Retirement” retirement party will be held this Friday, January 28, from 4-7:00 pm at the Savannah extended campus. The celebration will continue later in the evening at Service Brewing in Savannah. For details, contact Trisha Cordray at pcordray@uga.edu.

Only a few days left for your nominations!

The deadline to tell us about someone who’s extraordinary in the field of pharmacy is this coming Tuesday, February 1!

If you haven’t, you’ve still got time to help choose the best of the best in Georgia pharmacy — with the 2022 awards being presented with both pomp and circumstance at the 2022 Georgia Pharmacy Convention in Amelia Island, Fla.

What awards, you ask? The details are at GPhA.org/awards, but here’s the list:

• The Bowl of Hygeia: You know it or you don’t — it’s among the most prestigious awards in pharmacy and the only one with a Wikipedia page.
• Larry L. Braden Meritorious Service Award: GPhA’s highest honor
• Distinguished Young Pharmacist Award (“Young” meaning in the profession for less than a decade)
• Excellence in Innovation Award for Pharmacy Practice
• Faculty Member of the Year
• Jim Bartling Student Pharmacist of the Year*
• Pharmacy Technician of the Year

Yes, these are GPhA awards, but nominations come from you, the members. That’s what gives them meaning. And it starts now.

Visit our awards page at GPhA.org/awards for more information on award criteria, and to make your nominations. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2022.

* Note that, by tradition, the winner of this award is expected to buy a round of drinks for all student pharmacists attending the convention.

Where the pills are, 2022

Pfizer’s Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) and Merck’s molnupiravir are great weapons in the War on Covid, with one big sticking point: They’re hard to find, and they have to be administered quickly. Not a great combination; a prescription doesn’t do you much good if it takes a week to find the meds.

The folks at GoodRx have a solution: A live map showing where the antivirals are available in the country, down to the pharmacy level. The site also explains the meds and who can take them, and answers a bunch of questions.

The bottom line, of course, is that neither is a substitute for vaccination, but they might make you take less of a hit.

Take that, Canada

You gave us Bieber, so we’re sending you white-tailed deer … with Covid.

(Not really. It was an accident. And you did give us Ryan Reynolds, to be fair.)

Will you get long Covid?

A lot of people who contract Covid-19 also end up with long Covid — symptoms persisting for months or years. But who will get that gift that keeps giving?

Biologists from the Institute for Systems Biology, the University of Washington, and Stanford think they’ve narrowed it down to four risk factors:

• The level of coronavirus RNA in the blood early in the infection (aka, viral load)
• The presence of particular autoantibodies that “that mistakenly attack tissues in the body as they do in conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis”
• The reactivation of dormant Epstein-Barr virus
• Type 2 diabetes (although it may not be the only such risk factor)

As all of these are measureable, doing so early on could help inform treatments. For example…

[B]ecause patients with high viral loads early on often developed long Covid, giving people antivirals soon after diagnosis might help prevent long-term symptoms.

Does this mean it’s publicly funded?

Anthem doubled it’s profits in the fourth quarter — passing the $1 billion mark, “thanks to strong enrollment in its Medicaid plans.”

Insert inoffensive headline here

After studying a new type of condom — one with the rather titillating name “CSD500” — Ohio State researchers concluded it was so good, for both women and men, that it could actually increase usage. That’s important when hormonal contraception isn’t an option, or to overcome any psychological or physical issues with traditional condoms. (Why yes, I am choosing my words quite carefully. This is a family publication.)

CSD500 has been approved in most of Europe since 2011, plus Saudi Arabia (!) and the UAE; it’s currently for sale in the Low Countries*. Why does it need approval? It contains a skin-permeating vasodilating gel. Now you see why it gets those rave reviews.

* The Netherlands and Belgium. I’m just showing off. But here’s a cool video about Holland.

Diabetics, watch those kidneys

If you have patients with type 1 diabetes, they might look fit now, but a new study out of Johns Hopkins suggests they ought to not only keep an eye on their weight, but on their kidney function, too.

“Kidney disease is often considered more common in people with type 2 diabetes, but our data shows adults with type 1 diabetes actually had a higher risk of kidney disease than those with type 2.”

Cleaning up after a stroke

If a patient has a stroke, it raises his chance of dementia — “post-stroke dementia,” obviously. But it seems that dementia might be caused by the immune system responding to dead brain tissue, which contains a lot of chloresterol.

So, figured University of Arizona immunobiologists, what if you could “scoop out” some of that cholesterol, reduce the work of the immune system, and reduce inflammation? Turns out you can … with cyclodextrin.

[T]reatment with cyclodextrin resulted in less cholesterol accumulation and inflammation in the brain in animal models. Cyclodextrin also reduced neurodegeneration, protected memory function and reduced impulsivity, a personality change that can occur after stroke.

Or, put another way, “Cyclodextrin helped remove cholesterol derived from the breakdown of dead brain cells, dampen inflammation and improve recovery.”

Do you think the T cells feel neglected?

Antibodies, antibodies, antibodies — when we talk about how effective a vaccine is (and how long it lasts), it’s all about measuring antibodies.

Of course, our immune systems are a lot more complex, and antibodies are just the tip of the iceberg. Doing a lot of the long-term heavy lifting are the T cells, which keep a library of all the nasties they need to be ready to fight off.

T cells might not prevent an infection, but they’ll darn sure avenge you when one strikes, And a new study out of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology found that all the Covid vaccines in use today “prompt the body to make effective, long-lasting T cells against SARS-CoV-2” — including Omicron, and that immunity lasts, even as neutralizing antibodies decline.

Captain Obvious binges Roland Emmerich

“Repeated Exposure To Major Disasters Has Long-Term Mental Health Impacts” —Texas A&M study.